Holding Up the World - Feb 19 2021

 

Holding Up the World

Feb 19 2021

Plants grow toward the light,

shouldering each other aside

as they compete for sun,

old growth

over-shadowing

the young green shoots and leggy saplings.

But in the dark subterranean soil

roots touch,

nurturing their young

and connecting the forest

in ways we never fathomed.

And in the cool and damp

of the forest floor

fungi are decomposing matter

returning it to life.

While underground

their tendrils envelope the roots,

forming intimate networks

that talk, and share.

So we only see trees

disembodied,

dappled leaves and formidable trunks

cut off at the neck.

That would topple in the smallest breeze

and die of thirst.

As we see ourselves depicted,

competing, striving, making war,

all the headlines

blood and gore.

While in the modest places

that are largely ignored

we are going about our daily lives;

the familiar domesticity

of family and neighbours

friends and acquaintances,

the small acts of kindness

and the nobility of labour.

The virtues of the day-to-day

even when falling short.

So just as we see the trees

competing for light,

instead of the forest

working as one, but too slowly to notice,

it's only by digging down deep

beneath the lurid news,

and reconsidering time

with the eye of an historian

that I've overcome my despair;

the small acts and modest lives

that redeem humanity

and have helped restore

my jaded perspective.

The good people,

toiling away and taking care.

The foundational sense

of home and belonging,

rooting us in place

and holding up the world.

I've been reading a lot of botany lately: about fungi* and trees in particular, and plants in general. Especially about the intelligence of plants: the clever ways they interact with their immediate environment; and how they sense and respond and even remember in ways both similar and alien to us. But in whatever way – at least until recently – underestimated or totally ignored by science: because we exist in different magnitudes of time; and because they perform all these surprising and sophisticated acts without nerves or a brain. There is the semantic problem presented by words like “intelligence” and “consciousness” that are perilous to use without careful hedging and scrupulous definition: because intelligence can simply be instrumental; it doesn't require sentience or self-awareness. There is also the bigger problem of understanding a totally alien creature that eats light and is rooted in place.

I also diligently follow the news, and find myself increasingly demoralized, cynical, and jaded. I think the only antidote to this is to be found in daily life. Because the headlines distort one's perspective. “If it bleeds, it leads”, as some wag once said. I wrote recently to someone something to the effect of “being rescued by bourgeois day-to-day domesticity”.

This poem conflates the two trains of thought. It finds an analogy between the modesty of the invisible roots and the virtues of everyday life, both of which are often hidden from sight.

*not strictly botany, since fungi constitute their own kingdom of life